ACI Academy Of Central Intelligence
by Sarandipity
Summary: Project Christmas was continued with Sydney as it's main experiment. SV with SS undertones! Chapter 8 Sydney's birthday ends with her death, but is death the end or the beginning or a new life?
1. Mission XJK835 Failed

Title: The Assassin

Author: Sarandipity

Relations – S/V with a little S/S in the future.

Distribution: FF.net and SD.1

Disclaimer: I don't own Alias, I'm just blindly obsessed.

A/N: This has been in my mind since the Indicator, but I haven't gotten around to it. Finally a month ago I started to write it. I'm half way done, and now finally I have writer's block. Also, if anyone wants to beta a 30,000 word story, that isn't even done yet, hell you be my god until I die.

Summery: The school was supposed to bring spies to the CIA after their education. It was a relvotionary plan that even the Russians wanted. Then it fell apart. 

_______

Chapter One – **Mission XJK835- Failed**.

She ran across the roof, her heavy Kevlar and gear gave her more weight that she was keen on. She moved like a fast cougar, dark and fleeting around the steam of the air conditioner. 

She held her gun in her sweaty palms gripped her gun in her hand, ready to shoot. The voices came like a large thunder in her ear telling her to retreat, to let him go, it was becoming too public to continue. She refused, this was her mission and she didn't fail.

"Freeze on behalf of the United States Government!" She shouted, thinking any statement would at least slow him down a tad. "Bitch!" She rebuked as the man began to climb the edges of the side vinyl of the building next to the roof with a courageous jump. She took a deep breath and jumped at his feet, but reaching for the edge of the windowsill. 

She shifted her weight, getting her whole body on to the edge. He began climbing to the top, and she scolded by firing warning shots into the air. She reminded herself, how much he was a bitch to handle if they needed him alive.

Suddenly it began to get harder to bring herself onto the edge.

Sweaty palms made her loose her grip on the edge. She was just a few feet from the end and then suddenly her hands, raw and sore from the burns of the rope, she lost her grip sending her seven stories into the pavement below. In that brief second she shifted her weight in the air sending her to a nearby garbage can, and her breath became something that was omitted. 

She could feel the pain shooting to her back, knocking the wind out of her. The pain of the sharp cut cans pierce her skin like a rash from the water; she could feel pain everywhere and the smell of rotting fish. The muted sounds of the world was so distant and far, when they came to help her, she stared out to the blue sky and the blistering sun unaware what they intended to do. 

 Six months later… 

The room was sterile, full of men gorged with greed and malevolence. She doesn't care what or who they worked for, she was a freelancer, barrowed to them for them exploit her intelligence and skill. 

The name doesn't mean anything to her, each agency has different vices, and if she sits there and points them out surely she will find virtues for those vices also. Everything has a negative and a positive; she learned that as a child and keeps it in her mind for these types of briefings.

She sits uncomfortable at the least. She could describe many feelings in this ambiance, distant, imprudent, reckless, apprehension, iniquity, and narcissistic. Mostly the feeling of those around her, but the most that she is feeling was emptiness. 

She does many of these briefings, a chance to catch up on how everything is going as successfully as it could. But she never saw as much dull men than a strip joint. She drew in a large breath and looked again at one of the senators who were going over Mission XJK835. She despises that mission because that was the first mission she failed.

"Many see that you got yourself personally involved in this, in your statement it describes that you were, and I quote 'In no way I was personally implicated but generally. It was only frustration that gave an image of dependence with the Mission, and not the broad exertion that I was possessing." She does not blink at this, those was her true words. 

But the question was not if they were hers but how did it resolve the failed mission. "Quite a nice statement there, Miss Doe, can you tell us how that image was produced if it was at all produced?"

"I see how that is relevant with today's meeting." Miss Doe tells them all. They sit in disbelief that she does not answer, especially under oath.  

"It has all the relevance with today's meeting, Miss Doe." She swears under her breath and begins twiddling with her fingers.

"The reason of the image is personal, but not the mission itself." She says.

"So you lied?"

"No, you asked me of my personal attachments to the mission but not the reason behind it." They nod and waited for her words to speak again. She doesn't like this seat as much as she remembers last time she was here. 

She doesn't want to be here as much as a child wants presents all year round. She wants as much as a child wants candy to get out of this chair now. At this moment she wants to leave, but she knows they weren't going to let her leave until she tells them.

"You know about my upbringing, this was what I aspired to work for." She rolls her eyes.

"The mission?" He clears his throat in misunderstanding.

"No, the CIA." She clears for him.

"Explain."

"I'm not suppose to exist, the only place where I have a name is here. Surly you understand the longing a woman would want for someone to call her real name than Jane Doe. The last person who knew my name was killed when I was ten. I lived in an illusion, Senator. I still live in an illusion, anyone would understand." She glares at her hands, knowing they want her to continue with those thoughts. "No one can know how I feel. I was secluded from the real world for ten years, then suddenly I was pulled out from the illusion and it was a large culture shock." Miss Doe tells them.

"You surely blame your father?" Senator McClain asks.

"My father wanted to protect me after my mother's death, he took away the world so I wouldn't get hurt. If he didn't do that I would be dead. I thank him for all that he has done. There has been times when I would liked of grew up in a normal setting, with friends with an IQ under 140, to grew up like a teenager. Surely I blame him for a unnatural childhood, but I was denied that right from the first day of my life." She tells them.

"Every human has a natural right for a life." One man tells her.

"There is so many lies in that statement. I have two natural rights in my life, to give life and destroy it. You wanted me to do that, than you tell me that I cannot terminate him. You cannot have it two ways, like myself."

"He was a enemy who had valuable information about the Rambaldi pieces." He counters.

"And very likely that you would get anything true from him. Peter Nightingale was a member of the revolutionary front, a valuable affiliate with B-rate training compared to mine. There was no chance in hell you were going to get anything but a few German curses." She tells him. With a brief pause to review her statement she continues. "Rambaldi is just a fraud, anyway I wouldn't even make him break with the training I had."

"And your education?" McClain probes.

"You know as well as I know where I was educated."

"This academy you went to, where was it?"

"Even to you that is classified." She tells him.

"In just a brief curiosity, at the academy, did they all call you by your number…Jane Doe 447?"

"Those numbers are just for CIA documents, we were called our names at school. But once we enter Intelligence, we don't exist anymore. We are given our full Alias after graduation which we must use."

"Your alias?"

"Catherine Helen Jones is my public alias, but for document briefing you must use Jane Doe."

"And the populace of Jane and John Does, made by this academy?"

"That's classified?" She returns. He settles down with the folder, bringing the glass of water to his lips and taking a long sip as he examines the stature of Jane Doe. 

Her long chestnut hair, the built but feminine structure of her body, the slight curves of her waist, the porcelain skin of her hands, and the deep bone structure of her face that resembled the earlier pictures of her mother. They know about her childhood, her parents past, but not her adolescence. And they desperately want that knowledge.

The door creaks open and came inside an old man in a disgustingly green suit with reddish fading hair. She glimpses up in surprise; she thought the doors were locked. She could have just walked out when she wanted to.

"Excuse me, I need to see Miss Doe." He tells the men.

"Impossible, we are not finished." McClain says.

"It is in her contract that she cannot be exploited twice in the same affair, simple constitutional rights." He tells them. She knows that was true, but she knows they had the power of martial law. They could do what they want when they wanted.

"I have the power to override that right."

"But not her contract between ACI and CIA," He tells him, he moved for Miss Doe to come with him while McClain began to call the Director Board. 

She gave a warn look around the room as she exited. "What is going on?" She asks. He did not reply but kept his hand on the middle of her back as he led her down the hallway. He had a frail look in his old age but one of the very familiar faces she knows though. 

She asks him again but he did not respond, soon she was thinking that he did not speak English. "Why didn't I stay in the meeting?" She glances at him as he escorted her down the large hallways observing his intense eyebrow twitching with every question. "You worked there didn't you?" He stops her in the middle of the hallway, bringing her to the side. "After the accident." She tells him.

"It was a long time ago, that was no accident, you were only a child and I only worked with your father during that time. I owed your father a favor and this is it." He opens the door to his right and almost pushed her in. 

The man sat up, buttoning his blazer and nodding for him to close the door behind her. She stares at the man in front of her, a real CIA patriot. CIA emblems all around, a mini flag in a coffee cup with his pencils, a yo-yo on his desk, a hockey puck next to it, many law texts piled behind him in a small stack. 

She walks to his desk and extends her hand to shake with his, a nice tight grip he commented. She didn't smile but sat down in the chairs behind the desk.

"I remember you, you're Agent Vaughn."

__________Feedback!


	2. Austere Acquaintances

Chapter Two – **Austere Acquaintances**

"I hope you do."

She examines him for a second. Good structure, beautiful green eyes, great highlights, and most of all, pride. She idolizes a man that knows what his job was, how it was important, and what good it could do. 

That was all that mattered in the relationship, the sense of who the other person was. She doesn't understand while in this office she thinks of personal thoughts, especially in the building full of prudes. But there was no place she could go today. She was forever stuck in the world of prudes, millions or prudes, millions of thousands of prudes. Ok, she was going on a little. Can't blame her though, she hasn't slept in forty-seven hours.

"Morning Sydney, I hope you didn't miss me that much." He says, she tries to smile but she is amazed of his greetings.

"How do you know my name?" She asks.

"Your father told me a quite bit about you, as much as he could." He tells her.

"Do you know when was he last?" She so desperately wanted to see her father.

"I suppose he doesn't keep up tabs with you." He says.

"Last conversation I had with him was in Istanbul over a year ago, and only for five minutes." She tells him.

"I talked to him, three weeks ago. After they finally pulled Mission XJK835 out from the archives. He had figured that the CIA wasn't done with processing your last mission with them. Anyway, he told me to tell you that he's fine and will be seeing you soon." He smiles as he opens the file, her full file from the CIA. "You father told me of your aspirations to the CIA, you would be a great operation's officer." He complements.

"I'm an assassin." She says.

"Yes, your father told me of your…specialties." He says roughly. He looked uncomfortable in the executive chair that he was sitting in. He licked his lips and turned the page of her files. 

His moves were almost stressed in her presence, knowing that one of his liabilities was as evil as any enemy of the United States was. That tore him up inside, that the same people they were fighting, they were using the same evil that they were fighting. Fire and Fire didn't work; he always learned that water eliminates fire. She was too beautiful to be born with that occupation, but she was acting like it was.

"He doesn't accept it, though. But he doesn't understand that assassination was the first thing that he taught me." She tells him, sitting back further in the chair.

"He wants to put you as a operation officer."

"I don't spy, I kill." She tells him with authority. He stiffens and pears at her, who the hell does she think she is? He giving her a great deal, people would kill for that position, and he would have to see her everyday, which wasn't a bad thing.

"I'm aware of that, Miss Bristow, but I'm not in the position to put you in that place." He looked at her, with all the grace she had stored in her movements she still looked rouged and stressed. She was beautiful though, with intense brown eyes that matched the color of hazelnut, and reflected his green with a certain attractive tint. 

She was a processed agent, dealing with missions more years than he worked at the CIA. He didn't know if her movements were swallowing him, but it was also a front that was produced by the best teachers. "Surely you understand."

"Very much. But I'm reconsidering the CIA." She tells him.

"Why, what would you have in store?" He asked, misunderstanding. 

"I got a great offer from the NSA, I would be working as an Assassin in Paris, France with enough money to build my career further than twelve years." She tells him, his look like he was lost in roads in the hills of the plains. 

Since there were no hills in the plains, it seemed like the perfect antidote. "A assassin as a average career, possibly life, then a term of twelve years. Usually assassins are terminated during the last twelve years of their career or sooner. So agencies are looking for younger, more reliable agents to deal with those hits." She tells him one final time.

"Nice try." He complemented. This woman had pulled every trick in the book; I mean she really doesn't work at the CIA, does she? He begins to become sort of amused by her.

"You have something against me?" She figured, examining him. He shifts his weight in his chair looking at her with a question in mind.

"I don't know what you mean?" He asks. 

She stands up; he stands up also, always living by the polite etiquette that his mother taught him. She circles the desk, laying her fingertips along the surface. She comes behind the desk, inches away from Vaughn; she gives her one of many faces that tantalize men's senses. 

She takes her fingers from the desk, raising the up to his arm, drawing circles up his muscled arms with a seductive stare. "I mean, it would hurt my feelings if the only person that knows my name doesn't enjoy my company." Her hands roam his chest, feeling his sculpted chest. 

The warmth radiates of them both as she teases him by moving to his lips to kiss him, she moves her head back and forth, and every time moving her lips before he could touch her. "I would be so sad if you didn't like me." She brings her hands to his face, cupping his cheeks with her manicured fingers, lightly pressing her lips with his. 

First the kiss was unexpected but desired with each force of their subconscious. Her lips were warm and lush, tasting like her cherry lip-gloss that lingers with every word articulated. His lips were placed on hers with almost little force, and the parting and resurrecting of the warmth brought him drinking in her scent. 

She intensified the kiss with parting his lips and drawing her tongue into his warm mouth. He tasted the lip-gloss and the true taste of her mouth and once again battled. He brought his lips lower to grasp her mouth, she drew back unaware that he would return the kiss. His tongue entered her mouth and could not stop caressing her tongue. 

With all frustration, they continue with no end to be seen. She could feel his hands, the warm large hands reaching for her waist. Her fingers moved to the back of his back, dragging her fingernails over his back softly but with passion that was suddenly pouring out of every fiber of her skin.

Her body began burning for his touch. She could feel her lacy underwear become damp as his tongue searched her mouth deeper than she could stand. She was suffering for his caress, his hands circling down her back in lazy circles. 

"Kate…" he whispered. Her eyes light up in surprise, what was she suppose to do now he was dreaming about another girl.

She never felt as alive as she was at this moment. She just wanted him to keep going, keep touching her. Her knees became almost weak as she whimpered from the passion that he was exuding for her. Her mind was screaming for him, screaming for his hands on her back to descend. 

Lower, lower, lower! 

He picks her up and places her on the desk, his hands still on her firm backside. As her body got shoved into the desk, and the desk did what it would do to any girl in a CIA office. It brings her back to her senses. She moans slightly and broke the kiss; he stared into the brilliant dark eyes, drawing him in again.

"Do I get the job then?" She says, almost out of breathe. She smiles, searching his eyes knowing that a future no will be stamped. He gets off of her; she gets off the desk and looks devilishly at him. 

He stares back, trying to oppress his smile but it comes out anyway. She will do anything! This is the most that one person can do for a job! She searches his eyes, laughing at the same humor that she found in it too. "That's a yes then?"

"That's a hell no." He tells her. She crosses her arms, and her smile disappears.

"You're rude, annoying, and god-damn infuriating." She says going back to her chair and screaming at him. 

"How?" He laughs; he thinks that he is being perfectly polite. She is the one that suddenly telling him death threats, jumping him in a time of passion, and then contradicting him. She is fucking crazy!

"You already know my answers, it's probably in that file if the assholes actually update those things. You already talked to my father, talked to his associates. That is infuriating and annoying. And it is rude that I tell you that I am not a spy, I do not hang from ropes, put little digital thingies on people, and most of all I will not be a lap dog." She tells him. 

She suddenly intrigues him, it is not just because she wants to kill, it is because she doesn't want to be used. He feels that everyday for working for the CIA.

"What about an field agent?" He smiles.

"You are talking my language now." She sits back down.

Anyone out there!


	3. Bleak Dwelling

Chapter Three – **Bleak Dwelling**

She signs the slip, contracting her only to the CIA. She took one more second to finish her signature and thought about leaving the where she was going to do now that she was contracted to the Los Angeles's offices. 

She finishes it though, and takes a second to breath in her new life. What will this bring now that she was a field agent, she doesn't know exactly what to do since she has always been an assassin. It was like a new skin and it was most uncomfortable. 

Two directors stood in the presence of two other agents and her. She gives them the paper, uneasy, Vaughn gives her very comforting smile, Agent Weiss, Vaughn's companion, was simple staring at her with disbelief, which she didn't know why. 

"What do I do now?" She looks up at the Directors.

"You need some rest now, there is nothing for you to do now." She nods and questions where she will go? She has been dead to Los Angeles for almost ten years now. She has no contacts and hasn't been in a hundred mile radius of the city. She is afraid if she takes one step on the ground, afraid that her cover will be blown as an assassin.

"Your Father set up an arrangement for you to stay in Los Angeles. It has been fully taken care of." Agent Vaughn tells her, she tries to smile but trust is hard thing for her. She stands up and shakes the directors' hands as they exit and she turns back to Agent Vaughn and Weiss. They give her a nice smile, but she can't return it as much as she wants to.

"I know this must be a tough transition," Vaughn sympathizes.

"Have you ever dealt with a AIC before?" She asks him.

"No,"

"Then you have no idea what I feel." She doesn't mean that to come out as harsh as it did. But she doesn't apologize though; she glares at her hands, brushing her tear away before they could see her swollen sinus. "So where am I staying?"

"With me," Agent Vaughn said. She didn't say anything, but she nodded, not looking at the faces that she knew were pitying her. She didn't take pity, especially from them. "Your father knew you would be sort of distraught after the paperwork, so he told me to make sure that you were safe and comfortable." 

"I have to get my things, so I'll meet you outside." She turns around and leaves the room. Weiss hits him roughly with a blown expression on his face. Vaughn doesn't understand why the hell he keeps hitting him; he was just being nice to the girl. 

She had been though a lot and she was very tired. Why not stay at his house; he knew that she would be safe and comfort at his home. What was the deal? The deal was he had this beautiful enchanting woman, probably in his own bead, if he slept on the couch, with only so much distance away from each other. That is what Eric saw with the problem, not like it was such a bad thing.

"What the hell! You got Bristow's girl at your house for the night?" Eric banters him.

"So?"

"So, hello, even her name screams mystery. You are always attracted to the blondes or the red heads with nothing but boring written over them. Yet you fall for them. What is going to happen with this chick?" He asks. Vaughn looks lost as he put all his things in his suitcase and clips the locks on. 

"Nothing, she needs a place to stay and Jack already asked me if she could stay with me. She safe with another CIA agent, don't you think?" He asks.

He walks out with his suitcase, totally ignoring him. They had been friends even before the agency ever put them in the same office. Those teenage years were spent looking for the right girl. 

The right girl for Michael actually, Eric was too busy having fun to actually settle down. He stayed up to the next girl if he could get the first girl out of bed before he went to the next course. Of course he got slapped a few times and tried to get with roommates. But, Eric, he was a fun lovable guy who, if he saw the girl of his dreams he would never betray her.

 He was only a big stupid teddy bear. Michael never guessed the other way; he just never took his advice because his love life wasn't the best.

But neither was Michael's, in fact, Michael didn't have one at all. His nights were spent at the office, at the clubs (with Eric of course) trying to speak different languages with other people, or spent time with his hockey stick and puck. 

There was Alice, but they lived in a world that neither of them felt comfortable with. 

There was Amanda, but she was too busy herself with trying to make it big as an Actress. 

But, then there was Sydney. Sydney wasn't like any of the girls; she didn't have blonde hair, blue eyes, or drove a luxury car. Instead her brown hair flustered with her deep eyes, her body wasn't as curved as other girls but had an appealing body structure, and her words that just came out of her mouth, and she was more than a match. She was perfection incarnate.

They met six months ago, working on the same case. They have seen each other around, she report to him if something went astray but nothing really did. He watched her eat her food coincidentally at the same restaurant, always ordering Garlic Bread, Salad with Italian dressing, and Pasta with ever changing sauces. But of course with a large glass of a light Merlot. He knows this because his table was always next to hers, but she didn't notice him, she never did.

There were this one time when he actually did speak to her, but then he realized she wasn't worth the trouble.

He walks out to her standing figure, watching the light rainstorm turn into heavy showers. She smiles and gives a small nod to Eric, talking away to his friend while Michael stands tall in front of Sydney.

"Are you comfortable staying with me? Would you like to stay with a female agent? Your father agreed instead of a monitored cell it would be a CIA agent." He explains.

"No, really, it's fine." He nods, walking off into the parking lot to get the car so she doesn't have to get soaked in the horrible rain. Eric instead confronts her, he knows her well during the phasing of her entry as a 'bowered' assassin. He wasn't too exactly fond of her, and neither was Sydney.

"You like rain?" Eric tries to smile.

"My mother was killed in rain." She tells him. He purges his lips together and nods. 

"Don't you hate when that happens?" Sydney tends to look up from her shoes to Eric's face with a hard distant glance. "Of course you do." Eric tries to laugh but instead coughed it out.

When the dark suburban came around, she climbed in the passenger side and closed it shut, sighing to get away from the stress. The music was smooth on the ride, he place the Classical channel on, not knowing that she liked all forms of music. He didn't have much of CDs, mostly what any boy would have. She didn't know that channels so she left it alone, but she didn't want to have the impression that all she enjoys was classical.

She steps into the apartment with a wide smile. It was a nice apartment, with dim lights and pictures along the walls. It was tastefully light and decorated and it suited them both in a nice manner. 

"Sydney?"

"Yes?" Sydney replied.

"You don't remember much, do you?"

"I remember the mission,"

"You said you remember me, do you?"

"I remember you taking my files on Rambaldi…not much," He sort of frowned because of that.

She walked along the walls enjoying the artist he picked out, all cubists, almost all Cézanne. She nodded and pointed on of the Impressionistic pictures from the odd shaped and drawn canvases. This one stood out from the others, it was odd of him to have many abstract and cubist on one wall and then placed in the middle was a full landscape by Monet.

"What is with this one?" She asks. He comes from the coat hanger and pears up at the Monet false canvas.

"I thought it was unique." He tells her.

"But it is the only impressionistic painter up there, you are mixing with your eras."

"You know about art?" He asks.

"Oh, my father took me to the museum when I would get these spells. I became very sick from the heat during the summer, and the only place where it was cool was the museum. He pointed out many of his favorite artworks and even told me of others he absolutely hated. He taught me many things about art, Agent Vaughn." 

She remembered the cool air conditioning and the many metal detectors. He held on to her by the hand, sometimes pulling her to his waist, and pointed out many ways that painters used to paint. She thought it was just a way to kill time then, but he loved to tell her ways people painted, and how it could change people's lives. "Though he never like cubism, I still don't know why." She murmured as she looked to the other paintings.

"Because they only hold mental abyss. I rather liked how people saw life." 

She hasn't heard that voice in almost two years.

**EgyptianKat-** Thanks a lot, just for that I'm feeling pretty good and throwing in another chapter!

**Sarabeth1**- Hey my name is Sarabeth too! No kidding!

**Zara**- Update!


	4. King Solomon

Chapter 4 – **King Solomon**

She turns around, there; a man with gray steel hair and ruthless expressions stood only a few steps away from her. She almost runs into an embrace with her father catching up on all the things they have missed. Her birthdays, holidays, and even her mission accomplishments. 

He hugs her back though; with a tight grip he refused to let her go that moment. She separates and glares up at him with that familiar understanding smile. "Still as cozy as barb wire." She looks around his face and saw a small scar on the side of his forehead. She touches it slowly and questions it with a glace that he cannot deny.

"It was a guard with a passion of throwing rocks." He explains, she cracks a smile as usual. "How are you, Vaughn tells me that you will become a field officer. That's good."

"I thought you would be happy, but they still probably want to finish XJK835." He nods. They go into the living room where they both sit on the couch. She just stares at her father; there was a time where his gazes were soft and tame. Where is eyes weren't as hard as stones and still had the zest for living. His zest now was staying alive, not living it.  "How are you, Dad?"

"I'm fine. I hope you are the same, I realize this whole thing had been very hard for you."

_Hard? Hard? He has to be kidding._

"Hard? Yeah, left to clean up the CIA's mess for six months without a word from you? Yeah, I say it's been hard." She says. His daughter was back, no longer the stranger that he had encountered so many times before. She had grown in he last two years, the nineteen-year-old girl he sent to help with a mission that would either make or break her career. 

He didn't feel too disappointed when he found out that the mission failed. Sometimes you cannot control what the world makes out for you. He also believed that she understood the fine print better than anyone else. The mission was, for her, to find him and kill him. Not to hard, but when they treat her like an operations officer, expect her to do all of their dirty work; they got a little out of line. 

It was painful to make his daughter go into a program of pain and suffering. But it benefited her in the most ways she could ever be helped as a child. She moved herself to Montana when she was only eight, first time she ever fully seen the snow. He could always remember how she would fidget in class, begging to go outside. Snow in July is never a moment to miss. 

She was the prettiest girl at the school. The smartest and the most gifted, she had a talent for marksmanship. He saw that from the start and told her to work from there. She was taught the newest technology in weaponry where she would spend hour studying the gun anomy. Becoming familiar with the sounds of each trigger that was pulled. She scored best at distances and moving targets, so they decided most of her training sheltered in the work of assassination. But she was gifted as a child also.

Her schedule was already packed with advance algebra, biology, and all the other needs of a regular high school diploma. Then there were the necessary lessons, which the all the students learn such as language, tactics, and physical training. Then there were enjoyment lessons for the student, and Sydney was naturally gifted with music. Her fingers graced white and black ivory, the old piano in the music room was played everyday. She would compose and play until the night became dawn.

*

He remembers waking up from the winter storm they had almost every season of summer. The wind brushing along the snow trimmed leaves and making it impossible to see sometimes. He didn't know what possessed him to walk down to the music room. If there was a possibility, his soul could hear his daughter's music. The keys softly hitting as her pencil scratched the lined paper.

He saw her, still in her school uniform of a white blouse and black jumper. Her hazelnut hair rested on one shoulder as it brushed along at her movements playing the keys. He had never heard of a movement so greatly played, or that movement at all. He saw her stressing, then cramping in her hands as she skipped a note. She cursed for a movement and began to erase the paper she scribbled on.

"You shouldn't erase it." His words echoed in the bare cold room. She looked up frizzled and brushed her long hair behind her ears and onto her back. Even in the same building their time together were based on morning hellos and the weekly private tutoring in her homework. Still, there were familiar as strangers. "Sometimes perfection only comes from mistakes."

"It's not right. If it's not right, it must be erased." She began to scratch away. He came over and grasped her arm lightly. She looked up and starred questioningly or insultingly, he never could figure it out, as he took the pencil from her hand. He sat down and began to fill in the now faint music notes she once scribbled in.  He stood back in front of her and turned to the first page.

"Play it from the start." She responded by only playing the notes, or the ones she memorized on the white keys with devotion. She closed her eyes and let the music rule the throne she sat in that moment. He watched her face, filled with the innocence she once lost. Almost serene and peaceful when her head moved back and forth with the same effort as her fingertips as the grazed the keys.

She ended it, realizing the end scribbled fitted perfectly with the rest of the movement. When she finished, he only saw his daughter with the great gift of tranquility and poise. She was a lady, not a killer, not a soldier, and not even a spy. She was her daughter; she was the child of the mother and wife he once loved.

"That was beautiful. Just perfect." He never complemented her so. She only looked critical and unsure, unknown why this little piece of her time was so beautiful and not ever the practice runs or missions were. She looked back down at the keys and only saw who introduced her to them. How her mother sat her on her lap and placed her fingers where they needed to be.

"How could she do this to us? To betray you and leave me cursed? How daddy? How did this happen to us?" She questioned. He had to tell her after she found the Cyrillic print in her mother's books.  It had been a hard week, but it was better than he hoped for.

"I don't know, she wasn't the woman that we knew. She betrayed me because she was ordered to, because she didn't love me. The illusion seemed so real at the time, she seemed like the ideal woman to settle down with. It was me that was cursed for my foolishness. You were innocent, you…" He couldn't finish that sentence. He could feel his jaw tighten when his daughter's tears began to fall.

"I was cursed to be like her. I look like her, I speak like her, god, when I wake up all I see is her face in the mirror. I see a betrayer, I see an…It's too horrible to explain. I hate it." She pounded the keys boards shut and looked away. "Why did she have me if it was all an job? I was just a tool. A picture she could easily fit in. I was a cover."

"What I truly believe, even if it is foolish. I believed she wanted you, that she did in fact love you. I saw the orders through those books, the orders of your…termination. If she wanted you…dead she would have killed you as a child."

"Daddy? What was her name?"

"Laura Bristow…"

"No, she was Russian, she had to have a Russian name."

"Her name doesn't matter Sydney, it's best if you didn't know." He passed his fingers through her long straight locks and looked concerned at his daughter. "I am sorry for all of this Sydney, I'm sorry for what you have to go through."

"It doesn't matter daddy, as long as we are together."

Hearing those words, Sydney brushed away the tears. She still didn't love her mother anymore, and her father did want to spare her the hurt and the pain. 

"So, I want to hear it again. Play." He opened the keyboard open again and watched and listened to the remarkable sounds of a child prodigy.

*

So, he looks again. After her knowledge of her mother, she had grown cold and harsh like any other CIA agent. Mostly like him in some ways, but don't help to know that she still wants to be an assassin. Of course, he couldn't tell her that her mother was a murderer. No child should know that, it was bad enough that she knew that her mother wasn't Laura Bristow.

"You signed the papers, you graduated, and you were a grown woman." Jack says with only a tighten jaw. He did not appreciate being blamed for his daughter's own reckless behavior. She was given an order, too bad for her she screwed it up.

"And you never once advised me of my contacts could ever be questioned. Did you? You led me to believe that this was only a small mission for me when it turned out to be a risk to me life." She patronizes. 

"I got you out from that trial even if they called it a debrief." Sydney only suppresses a smug grin when she walks away.

"Listen up Agent Vaughn because this is going to be one hell of a reunion." She glances up at her father and then back at poor confused Michael, who was only caught in the middle. He was still thinking that Weiss should have been here.


	5. The Ice Duchess

***Chapter Five - The Ice Duchess***  
  
Vaughn sat willing on the couch with only the company of two estrange family members battling out on who wasn't right and who was wrong. He already knows that both of them weren't going to win at this strange competition. It was in their blood, sort of speak, both probably could go on for hours, see whose blood could boil first. It wasn't until he became part of the reunion.  
  
"See Vaughn, you can be trusted only because you know we both can kill you in a second. Since of my father's feeble state and of course my education, probably myself half the time. The reason why we are here because you can't speak until you are spoke to, and that would take force, wouldn't it Vaughn?" Sydney places the glass at her lips never even glancing at his figure across from her. Only raising and eyebrow to her father and landing it back to her own glass.  
  
"Vaughn can be trusted because he is the only one who respects the classification of ACI, he never questioned as much I could see he wanted to. He can be trusted because his father could have been." Jack says.  
  
"Oh, another second generation agent in the room? We'll love for you to join the club Agent Vaughn." Sydney jokes.  
  
"Did know there was one." His voice breaks in the first time of Jack's arrival. "And it's Vaughn if you like."  
  
"Ok, Vaughn. Tell me if it's respectable to disregard your own daughter for the reason of her maturity?" She inquires.  
  
"Well, in my opinion, if the so called woman is what she is, a woman? Sometimes parents can only do so much. But if the woman is a need of dire assistance, then it is quite natural for kin to help." He chooses the words perfectly to be non-biased. But both of their faces are only in the game for the sake of the over all winner.   
  
"You don't understand Dad. To find out that contacts were also turned but they delivered false information. Contacts that you set up for me, that you told me that could be trusted. I gave that information to the CIA, information on where Peter Nightingale was going to be. So they tell me that when I go that I have to bring him back. Not the assassination I signed up for, but I go by what was ordered. Thinking, hey, it's no big deal, nothing too hard. But then when I go, he's not there; instead he's on the roof trying to run from me.  
  
"So I put on my Kevlar and gear and run after him. It's ninety-five degrees on top of a building in San Diego, tar sticking to my boots and getting sick from the terrible heat. I tell him to stop in sake of the United States, I'm telling myself what a stupid joke, he's a goddamn fugitive for four years and that's going to stop him now. And if it did, it would come down to it. So I'm running after him and of course I slow down, I have Kevlar, a knife, a gun, and tranquilizer shots. So it's going to be a little harder when I running after a ninety-five pound guy that could be easily snapped as a twig. So then he jumps to the side building, an alley between the two. So I jump, instead my gear weighs me down and I make to the edge of the side building, hanging by my fingertips.   
  
"I try to get on the side but my hands are sweaty and clammy and I slip, and I just make it to the trash can a foot away from the pavement that I was going to land on. When I get back, they throw me into a cell. I am refused a doctor or some bandages, or at least a shower to clean up the fish smell. I smell horrible, landing into a can of seafood swamp. I'm also cut all around from the opened cans that were thrown into that trashcan. So soon they start to become infected and two days I'm in that cell before they finally let me have a shower, and three days before I see a doctor.  
  
"By the time I accepted that the guards weren't going to say anything they came to me and said that I was being pressed charged with treason, espionage, and this is funny-Public disruption. See they wanted to charge me with something, wanted to punish me because I didn't live up to their expectations. They thought they were getting this million-dollar piece of equipment when all they were getting was just another human. So they got another girl trying to get paid, just trying to live up to her father's expectations.  
  
"I told myself, Dad's going to get me out of here, he's going to save me. After all it was his contacts, his information that she acquired. A month went pass, and then they send me on a bus to a far location. I'm stuck in another cell, top security, with a cell big as a broom closet. It took me five months to escape because in those five months there were no phone calls, no talks of a trial, hell I didn't even have a lawyer. Funny thing was even I got to the safe house the CIA director found me and only congratulated me. This time I was finally let go free, that was three days ago." Sydney takes a drink of her water and stares back at her father's direction.  
  
"I couldn't help you if I could Sydney. Those things are sometimes at people control that you can't influence. You know I tried, you know I did not forget you. But I had missions of my own, and those missions finally got you out of there safely." Jack says.  
  
"The only reason why the CIA let you go free is because Peter Nightingale is back on the radar, and they want that information."  
  
"And what do you think that information is, Sydney?" Jack questions.  
  
"The CIA told me that the revolutionary front was behind stealing Rambaldi pieces, Nightingale was part of that plan." Sydney explains.  
  
"Sydney, Peter Nightingale was part of Project Christmas. He was turned a double by your mother, and now works with the SVR. The only reason the CIA wanted him alive was because of ACI."  
  
"I don't understand Jack." Vaughn says. Sydney peeps at him sharply and looks back at her father with the most displeased face. They never talked about her mother before, now they were having this conversation with Vaughn of all people. Vaughn had to be well trusted and well acknowledge to be speaking of Laura Bristow in the same room. It seemed at the CIA he was totally left out of the loop with everything. It must have been a front, for all of her father's contacts and acquaintances have acted stupid in front of the eyes of their superior.   
  
"Peter and I were once very close associates. We had an idea of furthering Project Christmas into a full boarding school cover and continuing educating children to further them into the career in government. You were eight at the time when the CIA accepted and classified our idea. We were given a large building in the middle of the woods, not to far from the town to ask questions.   
  
"It was a regular boarding school with at least one thousand students ages raging from six to eighteen. So instead of gym and sports we taught sparring and fighting techniques, there were additional classes at the end of the day to teach the program. It sounds inhumane and cruel, but we provided them a home. They were never yelled at or punished; we were a regular school with just a few additional classes such as provided at Langley.  
  
"I never said anything to Peter about you, he never dealt with the students only the teachers. That's probably why he didn't recognize you when you two were on the roof. He left the Academy three years ago, and ever since then he was handing the programs and yearly tuitions to the SVR right under the CIA's noses. He did screw up though. When SVR refused to pay for any more intelligence from the program he sold the student manifesto to German intelligence. Just a few days ago they asked for the original copy of the manifesto. Peter was always the greedy son of a bitch, so he said he has it and will send it to them in a matter of business days. Now he's trying to get the copy from German Intelligence" Jack explains tiresomely.  
  
"That why they let me out of prison, it's because they want me to get the manifesto before Nightingale and Russian Intelligence."  
  
"Why didn't he make a copy of the manifesto?" Vaughn asks.  
  
"He was always the stupid one." Jack admires.   
  
"So why is this list so important? Most of the students are in different schools or with a different job." Sydney acknowledges.  
  
"In that manifesto, it has everything. Every doctor's appointment, every physical and physiological analyst, and I mean everything. Even alias and mission ops. Luckily the Germans have no use for it as they planned, but they want it for safekeeping. If SVR takes a hold of it, they will recruit secretly and they will know doubles. Sydney, they will know that you exist." Jack glimpses in a moment of shock.  
  
"So when am I getting this list?" Sydney asks.   
  
"Hopefully in the next few days, we have a track on Nightingale, we move in before he does." Jack stands up and brushes of dog hair around his blazer. "I'll meet you tomorrow back at operations, I'm going to assist with the mission." Sydney smiles wryly as her father exits the apartment. She looks back at Vaughn, who was questioning if she was going to ask about his standing friendship, mostly partnership with Jack. Instead she stares at him with almost an over played yawn and asks,  
  
"Where do I sleep and where's the shower?"  
  
*********  
  
A/N: Aren't you happy I updated. It's so cruel, I know. I'll have another chapter by tomorrow if I have at least *5* reviews. That isn't so hard to do. It can be only one word, I don't care. Now that's cruel.  
  
At least 5 reviews and I'll post the next chapter thursday...and it has lots of M/V fluff...it's your choice.  
  
* 


	6. The Morning After

Chapter Six - Morning After  
  
The sounds of dripping coffee echoes almost continuously in the small bachelors pad owned by Vaughn in another small suburb of Los Angeles. The aroma could almost be tasted and hopefully will awake any twenty-three year old senior agent. Instead he has to enter his room, filled with hockey nostalgic and the smell of cologne, and there on the bed was a very comfortable assassin sleeping soundlessly in his hockey tee.  
  
He smiles of course, he has a very attractive, stubborn, and dangerous woman lying on his king size bed. The shirt stopped around her mid thigh and showed her peach colored legs, almost artistically sculpted. She would be a perfect artist's model, the way her body was shaped and toned. It has to be in that line of work, he figured.  
  
Then her brow arches as her body began furiously shake under the spell of a nightmare.  
  
He reaches down to her shoulder and brushes it lightly before coming eye to eye with a nine millimeter two inches from his forehead. He raises his arms because it is the only thing he could do. It takes a moment for Sydney to see clearly after being shocked half to death. No matter what Sydney was feeling it couldn't compare to the two-second shock of a gun being cocked at his head.   
  
"Syd, it's me, Vaughn." He croaks as her eyebrows land in a fury.  
  
"Oh, damn it. I'm sorry." She turns back on the safety and rests the black cold weapon under the pillow.  
  
"Always sleep with a gun under your pillow?" He raises a brow at hers, and then smiles.  
  
"Well, for precaution." She figures. She yawns and then stretches. She looks around the room and spots a bathroom in the back. She almost skips to it, and sees a shaver on the right side of the sink. She glances at Vaughn who's standing in the doorway, incapable to move. She raises the shaver. "May I?"  
  
"Go ahead." He pretends he has something to do in the bathroom. Brush his teeth; he guesses he has to do. Jumps on the counter sink and began to dispense gel shaving cream on her legs, lathering the greenish tint around her caves and lower thighs. The motions are almost seductive to Vaughn, he felt so attached to her already.  
  
"You don't know how long I wanted to do this. Six months, can you believe it? I felt like I was a human Sasquatch it was so embarrassing." She began to flick the razor up and down her legs and then into the sink of mucky soap water. She almost feels joy in the grooming when most women are driven to madness to shave legs.   
  
She finishes by wiping the wet cloth around her legs and jumping of the sink. He spits in the sink and rinses out with a cup of fresh water. They both retreated towards the kitchen and Sydney sat behind the island in the middle where there was a plate of hot food and a dripping cup of burning aroma coffee. Sydney of course took to her plate with a starving moan as she stuffed her face in the omelets. After all, it was a long time before she had a real breakfast.  
  
"So, that what was ACI. Project Christmas, only lengthened." Vaughn says, as he smelled his coffee.  
  
"In some ways. ACI stands for Academy of Central Intelligence, but to outsiders we were known as Christerman Academy." She says with a hearty mouth full of food.  
  
"Don't you feel that your childhood was taken away from you at all? The training, the spying and you were only a child." He assumes.  
  
"Something I learned when I grew up was I was never a child. My mother took that away from me when she died." Sydney began to drink her glass of orange juice as she finished up her pancakes. "The training was just like the training you sustained where ever you were educated to be brought in to the CIA. Just we were younger, and more gifted." She smiles selfishly at the joke. He didn't find it that more appealing. It was wrong to take children and trick them to become these spies. To take away their innocence, he just didn't know how she lives with it.   
  
"When my father left when I was sixteen, the new supervisor, Nightingale," She knew now. "He took over. My dad created a school. The children were happy, even I was happy. Then Nightingale created a nightmare. He stole our humanity. That was when everything turned into one big problem for the CIA and they shut it down and Nightingale left without the slightest punishment. But, the academy created who I am, I guess I was never Sydney Bristow, I was always Jane Doe number 447…um…About the kiss, you know I was in a cell for six months, I was kind of…you know." She drags on.  
  
"Um…Yeah, I know what you mean." He laughs at it, a woman driven to the point of seduction. She did it well though; nothing could take that away from her. Her appeal sexually and physically, he wanted to know though, could she be attractive mentally and emotionally. She could be the perfect girlfriend, yes, but she wasn't exactly the normal girl next door. She had ghosts, baggage, and probably a history with guns since…six, he figured.  
  
"So my Dad really trusts you, huh?" She takes a sip of her coffee.  
  
"My Dad knew your Dad at one time. Don't know the specifics but they seemed to have a natural chemistry in the field. So I guess that's the only reason he let me be your handler." Vaughn figures.  
  
"Uh, yeah. That's right. You're my handler. Hope you can handle me." Sydney cracks a joke.  
  
"Believe me, you're a handle." He replies.  
  
"That what I hate about myself sometimes, I'm so cold to people. It must be the training, but I always think I'm going to end up like my mother. Breaking someone's heart. And when I was worrying about that I was already breaking hearts." She places her hand onto of his and it's like fire to the ice water for both of them. A rude awakening but also tender in the way her skin wraps around his fingertips. And for this brief second in time, she is so beautiful, so appealing, so gentle to the assassin she was.  
  
She didn't know he already fell in love with her long ago.   
  
He goes in for the catch, the simple elegance of a first, but not truly first real kiss. At first she doesn't really say anything when he leans in but realizing what he was doing, alluring her into a romantic scene she got scared. She became a hypocrite to her own fixation of words. "Really, am I that hard?" She says when he began to pull away from the surprise.  
  
"Um…No, not really. But, you know I can always use the challenge." Vaughn sort of gave Sydney hope this moment. No one knew what it was like to be stuck in a cell for six months, to escape and found out your right at the beginning again. Hope didn't live in Sydney; it flew away like a beautiful bluebird that could also be pesky too. Sydney wasn't a girl to fall in love with, she should have told him that, the way he was looking at her all morning. She couldn't fall in love even if she wanted to. She was a person anymore, she was owned by the CIA.  
  
That what the Academy was even if she denied it too much of her despair. They manufactured out weapons, and even if she wanted to call herself a human she knew all she was is a second-generation weapon with only one objective. Country. She grew up, took charge, and all she had to thank was her father. Her father kept her safe, and she was so thankful. She still was no matter how cynical or changed, she still thanks him to this day.   
  
She took out an orange bottle and slide out one pill and places the cap back on.  
  
One sip of water and a flick of her wrist, she was medicated.  
  
"What's that?" Vaughn asks.  
  
"My pills, keeps the bad dreams away." She smiles.  
  
The sound of an unlocking door boom through the apartment and the sounds of a loud mouth male with an addiction to the slide of his yo-yo walked through the door and found his way into the kitchen without an approval or invitation. Sydney jolted out of her chair to realize that it was only one of Michael's very good friends, Eric Weiss.  
  
"Hey buddy, I want to see if the mistress bitch is up." Of course he shut his mouth when he saw her wake and not very pleased with the interruption. "And she's wearing you jersey." He says automatically. His eyes jolted as the light above his head went on. "She's wearing your jersey." He points out again. He became a codfish once more; his eyes open in surprise with a full-paralyzed mouth.  
  
Vaughn took him into the next room, while he began to grin devilishly at his good long time buddy and friend. The man who could charm his way in bed but hook line and sinker his way out was with one time most wanted felons in the United States, who by the way looked dangerously hot in his jersey but nothing more than his jersey.  
  
"She's wearing your jersey, Man! Your Jersey!" Vaughn rolls his eyes at his screwball friend. "So…how was she?"  
  
"Eric-"  
  
"Was she good, oh man, she was good wasn't she?" He implies.  
  
"We didn't-"  
  
"Dude! She remembers! That's great!"   
  
"Eric, listen. Sydney and I didn't do anything. She was out of clothes and found my shirt. I slept on the couch." Vaughn informs his very good friend. "And…she doesn't remember anything."  
  
"I'm sorry pal." He seems disappointed. "Well, tell me when you are or after words…doesn't really matter." Eric began and looked over to Sydney. "You guys have to leave to Berlin now, you have an hour to get to the plane, you'll be debrief there. Nightingale is flying to Berlin at this moment."  
  
"Shit." Vaughn walked back into the kitchen and shared the same look that Eric shared.  
  
"Nightingale's moving in,"  
  
A/N: I want at least five posts! FIVE!! It's not so hard just to say one word! Come on...FIVE! Pretty please?! 


	7. Mission GHJ985

Chapter Seven - Mission GHJ985  
  
Sydney buttons up her blazer and changes the frequency in her earpiece under the blonde bobbed wig. She didn't know why she was doing this, she signed up for a field agent and now she was an operations officer. The only reason was because of her mother and the Academy. No matter what her mother did to her country, her daughter would be there to tarnish it. That was the reason of some of Sydney's reasons for everything. Because her mother would have been ashamed to call her family, which was one of the things she wanted most. Not to be Laura Bristow's daughter.  
  
"Boot Camp this is Freelancer, do you read me?" She whispers in her sleeve where her golden cuff link was.  
  
"We hear you Freelancer. Are you in position?"  
  
She glances around the niche and finds herself outside of the building on a very desolate area in Berlin. She checks that she is equipped, and ready catch this bitch for the last time. She puts a hand on her stomach, only feeling the heavy Kevlar. She had her guns, her ammunition, everything in perfect position.   
  
"Yes, Boot Camp. Waiting for Nightingale."   
  
She takes one deep breath and sights Nightingale with his armored guards escorting him out of the building.  
  
"I see him, he's with two men and he carrying a briefcase." She moans into her cuff.  
  
"Approach with caution, grab the suitcase, and met up in rendezvous at checkpoint."  
  
"What about Nightingale?" She asks.  
  
"You have permission to terminate, going radio silent."  
  
"Now they say it." She rolls her eyes and walks with a movement of caution as she comes up to Nightingale. His bodyguards hold suspicion and look almost seductively at her.  
  
"I don't suppose you have the time?" She speaks in German. She pulls out her gun and before the two can react she shoots them both, and then shooting Nightingale last. She crawls over his dead body to take the suitcase from his hand and notices the metal chain to the suitcase and his hand. She raises an eyebrow and laughs as she points her gun and shoots at the chain. Ironically, it doesn't break. "Damn it, Nightingale, you can never make it easy can you?"  
  
She pulls out her knife and flips it open. She squints her eyes and then looks back at his face, eyes open, and blood running down his open mouth.  
  
"You killed innocent children, you made my teenage years so terrible," She bits her lip as the knife cuts cracks the bone. "My Father created a home for unloved children and slowly brought them up into intelligence. You…you took everything we had left of our lives, you took everything away. But, yes, dead men can't talk." She looked away as she cut through the last inch of flesh and dried her hands with his shirt, blood dripping everywhere, her hands covered. She took the suitcase, without the hand of course, and walked her way to rendezvous.   
  
"I got the suitcase." She met with the African American middle-aged suit and a very pale skinned young male. She held up the suitcase, realizing that her appearance was not too clean. "It was handcuffed." She sighs.   
  
They exchange glances and then she falls to her back from a tranquilizer shot in her left arm.  
  
"Damn it." She whispers as it fades to black.  
  
*  
  
The taste of metal fills her mouth, the familiar feelings of once being drugged to take out her tonsils when she was twelve was remembered. She tossed her head around and looked at the green walls and the dim light that was more comfortable than future questions. She looks back down at the restraints at her arms on the bed, the itchy wool at her open spots where her office wear didn't cover.   
  
She turns her heavy head to the sides of her arms; seeing that the cuffs were missing and feeling that her earpiece was taken out. She sighs again and looks up into the lighting, blinding her eyes through her blonde strands. Blood seemed to dry everywhere on her body, tainted in her white shirt that was almost fully unbuttoned, on her hands, and on her blonde wig.   
  
"Why don't we start by names, shall we?" The voice was heard though the doorway and sounded bitterly familiar. She stares over at the man, smugly comfortable in the bleak appearance. She never been caught before, it was kind of a scare deal. She was actually frighten, and looking at the other man coming in with a couple of needles and god knows what else, she knew this was going to be painful.  
  
"Bite me." She spits out at her captor. He just shook his head as he let the other man advance with a very long sharp needle. He pressed over her left arm and punctures her skin just enough to draw blood. She squints her eyes and moves her body away trying to fight of the restraints.  
  
"We can go deeper if you like?" It wasn't a question though. She looked away in agony. How could a needle so small could hurt so much? It must have been coated with acid. Because that is what it felt like, it felt like it was ripping and eating at her skin at the same time. "Just tell us your name."  
  
"Go to hell." She moans. He pushes further into her arm and she screamed out loud from the torture. She began to almost have a tantrum under the restraints, pushing the blankets off the bed and racketing the bedposts.  
  
"Now, now. Don't get grumpy, I would hate to see all that passion burn out before we get to the real torture."   
  
He peers almost admiringly at her pain. He takes a moment to realize that blonde isn't her natural color as far as it has been. He steps closer to find the bobby pins and then pulls the wig off to let hazelnut locks cascade out of the cap. He is taken back as she flips her hair out of her face to see eye to eye with this peculiar man.   
  
"Laura?" A deep breath is caught in his throat. Her eyes are filled with surprise and shock. Either he was mistaking her, or mistaking her for Mom. He blinks and shakes his head as pulls out the needle from her arm and cups her face by her chin. "It can't be…Sydney?"  
  
"How did you know my name?" She asks him feeling his burning eyes in her face.  
  
"You have to be an imposter, I've mistaken you." His brow lands in a fury as he walks backwards. "Sydney Bristow died from an wound infection when she was eight…it can't be you. It can't possibly be you, Sydney."  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
The more the man became mad at the likeness the more Sydney questions his identification. He didn't say anything when she asks, but it was almost he was only paying attention to his thoughts than Sydney's orders.  
  
"Sydney would have a scar on her right shoulder."  
  
He stood and pulled the shirt over her right shoulder, and then pulling the bra-strap over catching the soft white scar over the delicate blue veins. He became a codfish to her, mouth wide open as if lyrics of Othello were going to burst straight after him.  
  
"You must be Sydney, you look so much like your mother." He whispers in awe.  
  
"My mother? How…who are you?"  
  
"I knew you since you were born. I was almost a second father to you."  
  
"I don't remember you."   
  
"I'm your Uncle Arvin."  
  
He looks at her for a brief moment, he doesn't remember a girl in her prime age into becoming a woman, he doesn't remember blood dripping from her buttons and under her fingernails, and he certainly not remember his young niece questioning his identity. He remembers a laughing bright girl who would frolic in the garden and try to catch frogs, wherever they came from. He remembers a girl who would run to her lovely deceitful mother as if the two were attracting magnets always separating easily and brought back forcefully.   
  
She is the spitting image of her dead mother. She talks almost as eloquently as her. She gazes just like her, out of those dark cat eyes that were covered in thick eyelashes. And she probably is just as deceitful as her as well.  
  
But he never in million years thought her employers and her father would punish her for the crimes of her mother. It had to be the only answer to how she survived the infection.   
  
A/N: Love it? I thought we get more characters in there! 


	8. X

Chapter Eight – X  
  
A/N: I'm sorry it took so long, I was in Russia. Really I was. I just returned two days ago so I could go to Halloween but I didn't have my files and I didn't have word there. But I have to tell you, it is an amazing place. I went to Ekaterinaburg in Russia than to Siberia- a town called Kurgan. It was amazing. But I promise a new chapter soon…you hear that Nick…I luv you…but I want my chapter! J! I promise a link to pictures…soon.

Chapter 8 - X

It was a very cold day in October, a very rare thing in Los Angeles. Gray   
clouds covered the sun and most of the children were being pulled away from   
the large grassy field, but the four stayed. The two men talked endlessly as   
the woman took her husband's camera and recorded each little movement as she   
turned back to the child.  
  
"Sydney, how did you like your birthday?" she asked as Sydney found that the   
stash of candy that seemed to go forever in her pocket of her pea coat was   
finally gone.  
  
"I loved it," she told her.  
  
"Tell Aunt Emmy what's your favorite thing to do.," the other woman prodded.  
  
"Play Piano." The words came out joyfully as Emmy zoomed onto Sydney, who   
was putting her black gloves on to match her pea coat, black tights, and   
black Mary Janes. She began tossing at her long hair that had almost been   
teased by her hip young nanny to fit the style of the vogue of 84'.  
  
Soon the conversation carried to the two men on the bench, finishing the   
rest of the brandy. They didn't seem to mind the clouds; their purpose was   
to get fresh air. It was strange how the other parents pulled their   
daughters and sons out of the playground, before actually knowing the   
weather clear up in a few minutes.  
  
"She's growing up lovely, Jack," Sloane admired as he watched Sydney move   
around Emily's camcorder.  
  
"I wish I could take the credit, but that isn't my working. It's the three   
nannies in two years that took care of her. Not me." Sloane nodded at Jack's   
confession understandingly.  
  
"She is your child. You have some credit to that."  
  
"It seems as if my paternal skills faded as she grew." Laughter came from   
the two females out in the Valley.  
  
"If she needs a place to stay, you know Emily and I can always look after   
her." He takes a look at the growing child, who is almost to the point of   
growing out of jumpers and into pleaded skirts at the local private school   
where she attended. "I know the doll has out grown her. Emily was set on   
giving it to her. But I would truly enjoy giving Sydney that old grand piano   
I have collecting dust in my warehouse. Perhaps Sydney would enjoy it better   
than I have."  
  
"I really can't let you do that. It's too much. The doll was enough for her   
birthday," Jack denied.  
  
"Oh come on, it can't hurt the girl. She needs a new piano to replace that   
dusty wooden box she plays with. She needs a good instrument to go with her   
good talent."  
  
"I'm sorry to tell you this. Perhaps I've been keeping this too long. I   
think I'm going to take Sydney back to Virginia, see how things do there.   
There's a great academy where her talents could be used." He took a sharp   
breath and looked down at his glass of brandy.  
  
"Sydney's nightmares are getting worse. She doesn't even want to sleep   
anymore. She stays up all night playing the piano and even the therapy isn't   
doing any good. I'm not even there when the bad ones hit. Last dream put her   
into shock and I wasn't there." He blamed himself no less, for the poor girl   
was wasting away before his eyes and he couldn't do one little thing.  
  
"She's a little bit skinnier, a little bit paler, and maybe a little bit   
esoteric than other children. But look at her parents, look at you, Jack.   
You are one mystery that can never be solved. Sydney has quality also," he   
said.  
  
"I don't know what it is, but I'm getting worried." Jack took one last sip   
of brandy.  
Sydney finished her drawing and Emily appeared to be disturbed by the   
eight-year-old's drawings. She told Sydney to follow her and they came back   
to the table with both men alert and tipsy. Emily laid the construction   
paper down for the two and held Sydney in her arms as she stood.  
  
"Look at what she drew." Emily pointed to the paper.  
  
It was sketched in black charcoal with black trees and a field of dark weed   
grass. Then there were four figures almost as specific as worry dolls. There   
was one large X across the smallest figure.  
  
"Sydney, is that us?" Emily asked.  
  
"Yeah." She shook her head.  
  
"Don't worry about it, Emily. She had drawn these kind of things before."   
Except she never crossed herself out.  
  
"Sydney, I want you to tell me why are you crossed out," Emily said once   
again.  
  
"Because I'm going to die today."  
  
The adults all looked at each other. Jack had asked those questions before   
and his daughter had never replied with an answer so alarming. Her body was   
now supported only against Emily's as the three began to worry about her   
well being even more.  
  
"Darling, you aren't going to die today."  
  
Sydney just shrugged Emily off and went to her father's side. "Daddy, I'm   
tired."  
  
"Ok, Sydney. We're going home soon. Maybe take a nap?" She didn't want to   
take a nap, but instead, only to get out of the cold weather.  
  
Sydney ran off to the blanket on the field where they both played and began   
to pick up all the toys, including her new doll Lucy.  
  
"Jack, has she drawn things like this before?" Sloane asked immediately.  
  
"Yes. But it's nothing. That girl has a wild imagination." Jack placed the   
pieces of the puzzle together. He could remember the look on Laura's face   
before they left for the movies that night. How her portrait had been X-ed   
out in Red crayon. Her face had still lingered with that horror as they   
drove off the bridge.  
  
Jack shook his head and grabbed Sydney's hand as they walked to leave.  
  
"Thank you for Lucy doll," she briskly told the couple heading into the   
other direction.  
  
"You're welcome, Sydney." Emily said to the adorable child.  
  
"Take care, Jack." He said as he wrapped his arm around his wife and began   
to walk farther away.  
  
They walked towards the parking lot, empty and desolate. Jack unlocked the   
car door and put away the picnic basket in the truck. He sort of began to   
feel little droplets of water hit the back of his neck. He sort of felt   
ironically dumbfounded as a heavy storm began. He could see his own breath   
curl up into smoke as it left his mouth.  
  
"You said it wasn't going to rain, Daddy," Sydney said, her hair began to   
drip with cold ice water.  
  
"Shows us not to trust the weather guy," he mumbled. Sydney sneezed and   
rubbed her nose with her sleeve.  
  
"Get in the car, Sydney," he said sympathetically.  
  
"You have to unlock the door first." Jack figured he had to do that in order   
for Sydney to enter the old Chevy Blazer. He closed the trunk and walked to   
the passenger side door. Sydney's mother always told him to make her sit in   
the back, but now she instead sat in the passenger side front seat. Sydney   
stood beside him as he opened up the door for her. Before she could hop in,   
the door slammed shut, almost upon Jack's fingers.  
  
* * *  
  
Emily found herself with two bottles of Brandy. She retreated with her   
camera back to the other side of the park.  
  
"Emily?"  
  
"I thought Jack would want the other bottle."  
  
* * *  
  
"Allo." The man shut the door and Sydney jumped away, frightened at the   
strangers. She never heard such a funny accent before, but it was polite not   
to say much about it.  
Jack knew the origins of that accent and was pretty surprised that they   
would come all this way just to meet up with him.  
  
There were two men, with thick accents and Slavic features. One stared   
hopelessly at Sydney as Jack pulled her behind him. The other stared   
ruthlessly into him.  
  
"What do you want?" Jack hissed.  
  
"Just to see that Irina's daughter is taken care of on her birthday. You   
know it is tradition in Russia for the mothers to dance with their children   
on the birthday. It is too bad, isn't it? Don't you think, sweetheart?" he   
said, directing his attention to the little girl hiding behind her father's   
legs.  
  
"Leave us alone," he ordered.  
  
"Or you what? Call the CIA? We do not exist. We are but messengers."  
  
"GO away!" Jack yelled in his baritone voice.  
  
* * *  
  
Emily reached the far-east parking lot and saw the two men and the fear on   
Jack's face as he tried to protect his daughter. Emily ran as fast as she   
could to her car and yelled for Sloane to get out.  
  
"Emily?"  
  
"Jack and Sydney are being harassed in the parking lot."  
  
* * *  
  
"We are here to see you don't poke your nose in places it doesn't belong, or   
your little girl will be put though some extreme punishment. And all just   
for you sticking your hand into a cookie jar."  
  
"Daddy…" Sydney cried while she held tighter to his legs.  
  
"RUN!" He pushes Sydney away and she runs though the puddles with her Mary   
Janes, coughing as her Father begins to exchange blows with the two   
extremely strong men. Her father did the best that he could to hold off the   
attack. Kicks were exchanged for blows to his stomach and hands slapping   
across the stoic face. The two men found themselves the victor of the bloody   
match in the pouring rain. One of the men opened his jacket, pulled out a   
nine millimeter, and cocked it at Jack Bristow's bloody face.  
  
"I don't think it is your day, is it?"  
  
Jack's brow began to question what he meant, until the man raised his arm   
and aimed at the running child's back. It took one shot right through her   
right shoulder to make her fall down into a muddy puddle.  
  
Emily and Sloane returned, Emily taping the whole scene. But as Sydney fell   
right into the puddle, Emily dropped her camera and ran hurriedly to   
Sydney's side. The two began to run after Sloane tired to kill them with his   
pistol. One fell, but the other man got away.  
  
"Sydney! Sydney!" Jack took her from Emily's hands and rolled her from her   
backside.  
  
"Sydney, my little girl…"  
  
Sydney's eyes were empty as the pellets of rain fell onto her porcelain   
skin. She held onto Lucy doll as the blood poured onto the pavement even   
though her father was holding onto the wound and applying pressure.  
  
"I dreamed this, daddy. I dreamed Mommy going off the bridge. I dreamed   
Nanny Buhler falling in the kitchen. I dreamed that Papa Bristow took those   
pills. I dreamed them. I dreamed you. I dreamed Lucy doll."  
  
Her mouth hung open as if she was singing a beautiful piece of harmony.  
  
"You're going to be alright, Sydney."  
  
He brought her up into a great hug as he rocked her back and forth.  
  
  
  
***  
  
This goes out to Nick! Hehe...   
  
My muse...have some vodka! 


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